QUEEN OF THE TILES BY HANNA ALKAF

 

I always avoided playing Scrabble when I was a kid because I never wanted to think that much when I was playing a game! Recently, though, I’ve started playing again and I’m actually enjoying it—I feel like it’s really good exercise for my brain. So I was so excited when I saw Queen of the Tiles, since it’s a mystery set at a Scrabble tournament. The book totally grabbed me right from the first page.

Every chapter starts with a word, the number of points it’s worth in Scrabble, and its definition. It’s so cool because the chapter word always connects to what happens in that section; for example, Chapter One’s word is prolegomenon, which means an introduction. Most of them are words I’d never seen before, and even though I probably won’t remember any of them the next time I play, it was still so fun to learn them as I read!

Queen of the Tiles follows Najwa, whose best friend—and reigning Scrabble queen—Trina, died suddenly at last year’s tournament. Najwa has spent the year since grieving, but when the next tournament rolls around, she’s ready to compete again and honor Trina’s memory. As soon as she walks into the hotel lobby, though, she feels like something is off. Then she starts receiving cryptic messages from Trina’s old phone number, and she begins to wonder if Trina’s death wasn’t an accident after all.

There is so much I loved about this book: the Malaysian setting (I enjoyed learning about another culture), the quirky, word-obsessed competitors, and of course the twisty mystery. If you like puzzles, vocabulary, and Scrabble, I highly recommend this one!